


Break

by pseudocitrus



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:40:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26362057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudocitrus/pseuds/pseudocitrus
Summary: It’s not the most unusual thing, but maybe — just because her heart is so afraid of it — she has her anxieties, her suspicions. And they are confirmed when he squeezes her tightly, even after they’re both spent. His bracelet is cool in the small of her back. His voice is hoarse.“You know…you’re really a great woman, Kimi,” he says, and that’s when the first heavy weight drops into her stomach.(Nishiki, Kimi, and their time apart.)
Relationships: Nishino Kimi/Nishio Nishiki
Comments: 11
Kudos: 34





	Break

**Author's Note:**

> i'm going through my tumblr and importing everything i can find! including this from like 2015 which i am almost positive i have not posted here already!! AH!
> 
> this was originally. random self-indulgence built out of some HCs w/neimana~ literally some phrases are hers, pls mind!

It’s not — the most unusual thing, for Nishiki to show up like this, to return her greeting not with words but with a press of his mouth against hers, and then a press of her shoulder blades against the wall of her entryway. It’s not the most unusual thing but it’s the first time that he takes her breath away so fast, and for the first moments when her hands rove his body the only thing she is searching for are rips in his clothing. The dampness of blood.

Nothing, nothing. His body is hot, but not feverish; firm, but not tense. His mouth slides and sucks against her throat and then she doesn’t think anymore, just tries to guide them both, backward, to her bed.

The back of her knees bump; she falls. Nishiki is going to devour her, she is sure (in — the pleasant way) — he is making short work of every piece of clothing. But once her skin is exposed beneath him, his pace honeys. His lips drag, his fingers dig, achingly —

(He is catching himself, trying to make himself linger even though he can’t stay. He is trying to memorize the texture, the flavor of her, and the particular vibration that her soft voice makes in his ears and chest when she whispers and whimpers.)

(And part of Nishiki can be so territorial — his grip is just hard enough to leave red crescents — part of him does not want to give her up. He wants to be the only person to see her blush this way and the only person to feel her body shudder around him and he wants for his name to be the only one she ever cries with such desperate desire.)

(But. More than that. He doesn’t want for her to be silenced forever, by any ghoul or Dove.)

It’s not the most unusual thing, but maybe — just because her heart is so afraid of it — she has her anxieties, her suspicions. And they are confirmed when he squeezes her tightly, even after they’re both spent. His bracelet is cool in the small of her back. His voice is hoarse.

“You know…you’re really a great woman, Kimi,” he says, and that’s when the first heavy weight drops into her stomach. She makes herself take a breath.

_It’s fine_ , she thinks, _it’s fine, it’s fine_ , but then his mouth moves closer to her ear, and that’s when he whispers it, only for her, _I love you_ , and he is shocked, when she begins to shake, when she buries her head into his chest and hugs him harder.

“No, no, no, _why_ —”

He is stronger than her, he could peel her off of him like an insect, so she has no remorse about digging her nails deep, and her words too.

“Nishiki, no, please tell me you’ll be alright. Please say I’m going to see you again. Please tell me we’ll see each other again, w-when everything gets better —”

But no matter how many times she demands it, he offers no answer except to hold her more closely, to kiss the scar on her shoulder.

(He is sorry — so, so sorry — but this will be the last time he hurts her.)

:::

(She tries — really tries, to wait him out — but she’s been up all day studying, and tears are exhausting. It’s only when she is asleep, when he is carefully disentangling himself from her arms, that his own eyes begin to water.)

(He finds a pen, and a paper.)

:::

In the morning, she can almost convince herself that it was a dream, or even a nightmare — everything, from the very beginning. But her body is searching for him in every room and hallway she enters, her eyes are scanning for his silhouette all across campus. This is the presence of a ghost, not a mirage.

She sends texts that go unanswered. When she returns home, she loses her nerve and bites her nail and scrolls to his number. Her bracelet jangles down her forearm as she crams the phone against her ear. She dials, and she hears his phone begin to ring. From beside her bed.

It’s there, on top of a folded-up paper that she missed earlier. She unravels, shakily. There are words there like _sorry_ and _fault_ and _danger_.

_involved_. _coward._

_appreciate._

_love._

_sorry._

_goodbye._

:::

It’s so much darker at night. And silent. She had somehow gotten the idea that having some final words with someone were all she needed; and similarly, she thought that losing people through death was the worst.

But.

There’s looking for him, everywhere. There’s thinking, _Please, let him be safe,_ and never knowing if he is already lifeless in an alleyway, or if he is beside her, inside a suitcase that a Dove is holding near her leg on the train. There’s every day that she can’t stop herself from looking for him, and every day that she visits the rubble of that old cafe, and the building that eventually grows over it.

It would be a lie to say that she is only sad. She is also furious. Life is so precious and short and she understands, where it is that he is coming from, but she would have rather spent as many minutes with him as possible.

But the fury, like everything, can’t last. Work wastes it away. It, and her sorrow, wane to something that is only visible when she sips coffee and stares away, to the figures of distant buildings, and further still.

:::

(He never sees her himself, doesn’t trust himself, even at a distance, from behind his mask. From the beginning, he asked her — muttered this request to her, fiddling with his bracelet — and Touka agreed. Of course she would keep an eye on her.)

(Whenever Nishiki visits, Touka tells him that Kimi is fine. Kimi is happy. Touka tells him almost everything she knows he wants to know, but. She is smart enough not to tell him that Kimi still wears her bracelet.)

:::

If Kimi were asked, she would reply that it was through hard work that she finally became a doctor. Hard work, and…perseverance. It turns out, too, that years can rub at the memory of someone’s face until they are as faded as if you had watched them descend beneath the earth yourself.

It’s during a break that she hears it — in a rare moment when the hospital ambience is low enough that the new anchor’s voice splits through. Abductions. Women with scars. _Torso_. And something else.

_Serpent. Serpent. Serpent_.

She stops, in the middle of the white hall. It’s the first time in a while her breath has been stolen so fast.

“Nishino-sensei!” a pat on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Y-yes! Sorry.”

The nurse is unconvinced, but smiles. They continue walking, together.

“Hey, Nishino-sensei…”

“Hm?”

“There’s a new worker in the pharmacy! A veeery _handsome_ one…are you interested in seeing him?”

:::

_(“Nishino-sensei…”_

It feels like something stabs him when he first hears someone say her name, when he first sees it written on a prescription handed to him. Kimi’s handwriting. Kimi wrote this herself.

He couldn’t wait anymore — not when it’s possible that the wounds he left her might still rear up and harm her more deeply. Touka can’t watch as carefully as he would like — and maybe. No one really can. He reasons with himself. It’s necessary for himself to be nearby. He doesn’t need to…talk to her. Just to be close enough to make sure she will be safe.

But. He holds the paper to the light.

_Nishino Kimi._

He almost goes to find her right then, but he stands firm, never knowing that rumors about him are reaching her that very moment, never knowing she is already learning his hours and his routine, like how he always finishes his lunch break with a drink from the same vending machine in one of the parks near the hospital.

One day he goes over, and he is a ghoul, with all of a ghoul’s heightened senses, an _SS-rate_ , but somehow he is caught completely off guard to hear a person clearing her throat behind him.

“Excuse me…”

His heart stops. He turns, already knowing. Her hair is different, and her face and her style has matured, but there’s no mistaking it. She smiles and it’s somehow the same smile that he always remembered and has dreamed about for countless nights.

“You’re new here…right? What’s your name?”

He should run. But…he doesn’t want to. His throat is dry.

“…Nishio,” he manages, in a croak.

“Ah, Nishio-san! What a coincidence…that really matches my name. Nishino Kimi. Hey, Nishio-san…will you share a drink with me?”

She holds out a can of coffee: his usual. From back then. One that can’t be found in this machine. When her hand extends, something slips down her wrists, goes beyond her jacket sleeve, and shines in the light. Nishiki hesitates. He shouldn’t. He shouldn’t.

But the can is cold. And her fingertips warm. And then, there, shining from the cuff of his sleeve too:

a bracelet.)

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! ☕️💓


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